Zhu Yuanzhang, the Hongwu Emperor. A poor peasant who lost his entire family in a plague, spent years as a wandering beggar, joined a militant religious society, and led a rebellion that ended the Yuan Dynasty and established the Ming. Way cooler than Qin Shi Huang, in my opinion.

And just for the sake of variety, I'd much prefer Sun Yat-sen as a modern Chinese leader over Mao.

Ito Hirobumi was the first Prime Minister under Meiji, known for drafting Japan's first written constitution and annexing Taiwan from China. He'd be a great way of showcasing Japan as something other than the land of shoguns and samurai, while neatly sidestepping any WWII-related controversies.

If Isabella and Jadwiga didn't make the cut, then all female leaders except Gorgo have already been revealed. So 5 out of 19 leaders are women, compared to 3 out of 18 for Civ V vanilla. I'd say that's a fair ratio.

And I can't stop myself. I know as I'm doing it that my opening up is really just what I know opening up should sound like. I'm just tapping in to stuff I've seen in movies and TV of people opening up to pretend that's what I'm doing when opening up.

I'm even doing it as I type this, none of what I'm saying is genuine and is based off what I imagine someone in this situation should be saying.

Authenticity is a mirage. There's no "real" version of yourself that's been hiding away in the corner all this time, waiting for the right moment to chime in. You always have been the real version of yourself. We are misshapen patchworks of cultural detritus and familial influences and historical trends, never fully formed, constantly shifting. You are an expression of the universe, and the universe is always genuine.

I'm not even sure if I really believe any of that shit, but it is a string of words that I constructed so I guess it's attached to my identity now. Cool.

That was me in college. Depressed, don't care, want to die, SUDDEN PANIC because I didn't want to disappoint my parents, professors (quite a few really liked me and thought I had great potential), class mates (it was a small program so saw the same people a lot and we often worked together on projects), so then sudden frantic work while the whole time thinking that what I was doing was shit and I would be lucky to pass... the work was always well received though and it was like I was the MVP of group projects. I guess constant crushing doubt and fear of failure helped me succeed beyond expectation there.

Job searching has been more open ended and seemingly futile though so anxiety hasn't been much of a motivating factor besides making me throw out random batches of resumes every now and then. Really I think anxiety has been an inhibiting factor in trying to find a job; I look at job descriptions/requirements and it freaks me out because I feel like I would be inadequate even though realistically I probably could do it. Maybe if I didn't have disappointed parents to leech off of anxiety would kick back in more in my favor; fear of imminent homelessness and all.

That said, anxiety at my extreme loneliness is kinda motivating me now to try to get better so that I can not be alone, and eventually gainful employment is part of that as it just seems like a prerequisite to having a relationship, so I guess in a round about way it is still doing for me what it does for you. Though I probably wouldn't be so lonely to begin with if it wasn't for the anxiety to begin with... It's all confusing and tangled up.

Your college experience sounds very similar to mine. Hated going to group discussions because I feared that I wouldn't have anything profound or even coherent to say; ended up speaking more than almost anyone else. Hated writing papers because I was afraid to turn in subpar work; ended up finishing minutes before the deadline and still getting an A somehow.

It's probably not healthy to think this way, but I wish I could have the same feelings of stress and urgency, the same fear of failure when it comes to anything outside of academics - having a social life or finding a job or pursuing a hobby of some sort. I do care about those things, but only in a very abstract way, not in the visceral, immediate sense of "holy shit I need to finish this paper before 9 am or I'm literally going to die"

Also, the thing about the job requirements. Holy shit, I can't tell you how much I relate to that. I realize that employers are not deliberately trying to crush my soul into bite-sized pieces when they write those things, but it sure feels that way sometimes.

Hearing people talk about their recent accomplishments or their future plans or how stressed they are by their job or how much they hate their asshole of an ex or how they hate going to parties that they nonetheless manage to get invited to or